Naruto of the Mage Gathering
by Heretic-kun
Summary: Naruto has a special power, one noone else in Konoha have, this does not go unnoticed by the ancient dragon planeswalker, Nicol Bolas, he takes Naruto under his wings. Follow him as he brings the world of Magic to Konoha. Discontinued.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi Heretic-kun here, here is my first x-over. It's a crossover of Naruto and Magic the Gathering, hope you'll enjoy the story as much as**** I did writing it.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor do I own Magic the Gathering (have a ton of cards though)**

In Konoha everything was peaceful, despite the fact that a giant demon fox, commonly known as the Kyuubi, had rampaged through the lands, and destroyed a big part of the city as well. The Kyuubi had ultimately been defeated by the hero of the village, their beloved Fourth Hokage That was four years ago, now the city was getting rebuild, some districts had been entirely abandoned, and was instead scheduled to be refurbished into training areas for the ninja population.

In the southwestern part of Konoha the orphanage was located, in this building the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi was being raised. The Fourth Hokage had defeated the Kyuubi by sealing it into his own son, though the village had never been told that it was his own son, and the younger generations were told that the Kyuubi had been slain. The reason for the secret of his heritage was the fact that his father had many enemies, unfortunately this plan backfired, and many people of Konoha believed that Naruto in fact was the Kyuubi incarnate, therefore he wasn't treated too well, the abuse wasn't physical, but the staff of the orphanage ignored him most of the time.

The current leader of Konoha was the Third Hokage, he had issued several rules to protect and help the young boy. But despite his intentions, it didn't help instead the abuse were subtle, he were ignored by the staff and the other children were told to stay away from him.

This afternoon something different was about to happen, that would change Naruto's life forever. Naruto was currently seated in the corner of the orphanage, far away from where the other kids were, he liked that corner. The reason he liked that corner, was the fact that it was the only corner that had a swing, he loved that swing, even though it was old. To Naruto the swing gave him a sensation of inner peace while he were swinging on it, it made him feel safe but it also made him kind of sad. It was like he was missing something, something very important.

Sarkhan Vol stood at the top of a giant monument, the carved faces of the Hokages. It bothered him to be on this the Plane of Intemperiae, the plane was fairly void of the magical energies known as mana, and therefore not practical for planeswalkers like himself to wage war on. It certainly wasn't because of the plane itself that his master Nicol Bolas had set his eyes on the plane. Instead it was an individual, a child, what made this child so special were of no matter to Sarkhan. He continued to look over the village until he noticed the place he was looking for, the Orphanage of Konoha, the location of the child who had caught his master's interest. Sarkhan Vol uttered a spell and out of his back two dragon wings sprung forth, ready to bear him to his goal, so he could leave this world.

Sarkhan Vol landed on the other side of the fencing, which made sure the children didn't run away from the orphanage. He had used a camouflage spell to get past the ninja's of the village unnoticed. He had fought ninja before, on the plane of Kamigawa and even with the vast amounts of mana on that plane it had been quite the challenge. So with the limited amounts of mana he thought it wise to simply avoid detection, as he was ordered to by Nicol Bolas. Sarkhan spotted the child over in the corner sitting on a swing just swinging gently forth and back, far away from the other children.

Sarkhan Vol made his way towards the child, his master had told him that the child's name was Naruto, and that he wasn't treated well by the other villagers. Nicol Bolas had also told Sarkhan what to offer the child in exchange for his allegiance to the ancient dragon planeswalker.

Sarkhan Vol made his appearance known to the young boy, by gently clearing his throat. The child had heard him and looked up, at him, as the young boys gaze moved upwards, Sarkhan Vol started to smile, to let the boy know that he had no ill intent.

Naruto looked up at the man who had cleared his throat, the man had rather long black hair, it was unkempt and gave a sort of wild look, his beard on the other hand were short and properly shaved. His shoulders were covered by two scales, which appeared to be from something much bigger than the snakes found in Konoha's Forest of Death. He also wore a harness, but it left most of his muscular chest bare, his legs were covered by a pair of leathery pants. The man interested Naruto because he smiled at him unlike most other grown-ups in Konoha the only other people he had seen smiling at him was the Third Hokage.

The Anbu sat on her perch watching over Naruto, who were currently speaking with an unknown man, the Anbu didn't like the situation because she couldn't hear what they were talking about. She was afraid to move any closer because the man radiated a weird aura, somewhat similar to Naruto, just more powerful but lacking the slight presence of malignant Bijuu chakra. She were also unaware of how good that person were at detecting others, he had gone unnoticed by her until the very moment he stood in front of the boy. He had appeared out of practically nowhere, even though she felt his presence prior to him showing up. Either he was very fast or he had means of camouflaging his presence.

"So what do you think of our proposal?" Sarkhan Vol asked Naruto.

"So you say that if I swear allegiance to this powerful dragon named Nicol Bolas, I will have a nice bed to sleep in every night, good food and friends and servants looking out for me. Some of those servants could even play with me right?" Naruto queried, hope was very evident in his voice.

"I don't actually know if they'll play with you, but my master will teach you some fun skills, that can be used to entertain yourself, maybe even summon someone to play with" Sarkhan Vol replied he then added "Some of these summons are very playful, I can summon one of them so you can meet it if you want to?"

"Please I want to meet one of the playful ones, is it like a puppy or something like that" Naruto asked, even though he had never seen a puppy before he had heard that they were cute and fun to play with.

"Well it won't exactly be a puppy, but it will have its playful nature" Sarkhan Vol said before chanting the spell "Vocare Draco" as he finished the simple spell a tiny baby dragon appeared in his palm.

"Wow" was all Naruto could say when he saw the tiny dragon appear on Sarkhan's palm. The dragon was small, it was no more than four inches tall, but it was at least one foot and two inches long. Its two leathery wings were folded on its back, it couldn't fly yet, because dragons of this species developed their wings on a later stage than others, but looked after their kin. The dragon was red and had no spikes on its mane, this species were the perfect dragons if you wanted to ride one.

Naruto reached his hand out to touch its head, the little dragon stretched its neck and the cleaved tongue came out tasting the air, sensing his aura. The dragon suddenly jumped onto Naruto's arm, and crawled up onto his shoulder and licked his cheek with its tiny tongue. This caused Naruto to giggle because it tickled him. This shocked Sarkhan, these dragons were often very compliant with their masters, but the young dragons were usually not the types to bond with other than their own kind. But this dragon had crawled unto the young boy's shoulder and even licked him. Which was the only form of caring expression those dragons knew at that age, it was how their mother treated them, she licked them to show affection and care.

"He seems to like you" Sarkhan said. "If you want to you might be able to keep him, but we're going to have to wait a bit before he can stay with you too long at a time, he needs his mother after all"

"So if I go with you to your master who is a dragon similar to this dragon, then I can learn to summon this drake to play with?" Naruto asked and smiled at the thought of having such a nice pet dragon.

"Easily, summoning the small ones is very simple" Sarkhan said and added "His name is Crosis, named after one of the elder dragons, a previous ally of my master"

"I accept, the proposition, but don't we have to talk with the old man Hokage before leaving, I mean you have to have permission to exit the town" Naruto said.

"Hah we don't have to have permission to leave, after all where were going it's impossible to walk to, it is an alternate dimension, so we have to use magic to leave." Sarkhan said before adding "Just take my hand and we can 'jump' directly to our destination"

The Anbu heard this and attempted to jump in to get Naruto away from the man who had appeared to have a summoning contract with the weird winged serpent. But she was too slow, Naruto had already taken the strangers hand, and then both disappeared instantly, as though neither had even been there.

The first time Naruto planeshifted was a weird experience for him, he saw several hundred worlds flash by, places that seemed too extreme to actually exist. Places that were shining as though they were suns. After about half a minute, they arrived at their destination, the meditation plane of Nicol Bolas.

The plane made Naruto look in awe, everything appeared to be floating in midair, as though there were no gravity, but he could feel that he himself wasn't floating. So Naruto resisted the urge to jump off the platform and attempt to float around like the buildings and rocks.

Sarkhan was about to tell Naruto to get ready to fly to his masters lair when Nicol Bolas landed on the rock just in front of them.

"Greetings Naruto, welcome to my domain and your new home" The elder dragon said, this statement surprised Sarkhan, normally this plane were exclusively for Nicol Bolas, and other planeswalkers were only allowed here when they had an audience with him. To think that this boy were going to call this place his home, it was just a big surprise to Sarkhan, maybe this child were actually a lot more powerful than he had initially thought.

Several years had passed, while Naruto spent a lot of time in the Nicol Bolas' meditation plane, where he was taught by the elder dragon himself how to summon and command the many creatures and spells that was in the arsenal of a planeswalker. He favored dragons above all else, they dragons also respected and loved Naruto. Naruto treated them with respect and never simply commanded them around like Sarkhan would do at times, but one of the dragons enjoyed being near Naruto more than the others did, that dragons name was Crosis. The young dragon had been his comrade and friend since their first meeting several years ago. The young Hellkite was now about seven feet tall and more than thirty feet long, they seemed to grow pretty quickly once the dragon were more than a year old.

Even though Naruto spent most of his time on the meditation plane, he had also visited other planes, some briefly others for several months. One of the planes he visited for several months were the plane of Kamigawa, Nicol Bolas had found it essential to learn how some of the being on the plane acted and more importantly fought. His plan were to allow Naruto to control several planes in his name, because a strong servant, meant an even stronger master and as such control would be easy to maintain and he could focus on regaining his immortality for him and his surrogate son. Nicol Bolas had adopted Naruto as his own son, and trained him and held as much pride in Naruto's skill as he did in his own.

This affected Naruto a lot, Nicol Bolas acted like a father around him, although a father that wanted his son to be powerful enough to hold his own in even the worst situations. Naruto slowly adopted lesser draconic features, some of his teeth became actual fangs, even though he could hide it with magic he took pride in them, and said that they were a symbol of his family.

They lived like that for several years and Naruto was now twelve years old, and rather muscular for a boy his age, the constant training both physical and mental had groomed his mind and body. But then suddenly something changed, the Plane of Intemperiae now had a greater and more powerful mana flow then originally. Nicol Bolas had noticed this, and thought that it would be practical to send his son to that realm to gain experience both as a leader but also as a person, his personality was too similar to that of a dragon, which in many cases led to problems when governing the lesser humans, they were always many, and even for an elder dragon that could become a problem. Also the plane might hold a clue as to how he could regain his lost power, after all it wasn't everyday a plane just upped its mana production, usually the resource was produced in a steady flow for several hundred millennia until it collapsed, then it usually just ceased to produce the resource. Not even once had Nicol Bolas seen a plane where the mana flow had increased.

"Naruto, my son, I need you to do something for me" Nicol Bolas started after he had finished the training of the day. "The plane that you were born on has changed, and it seems to hide important information on how I regain our lost power, so we can live forever as immortal planeswalkers."

"So you need me to go to the plane, to search for whatever is causing the change, then research it and report the findings to you?" Naruto asked, even though he already were pretty certain that he was right, after all he knew his father pretty well.

"That is correct, the thing is that the plane has increased its flow of mana, and that is a thing I'd never seen have before. Also I think that no matter what we should secure the plane for ourselves, since it is your birthplace after all, it is yours rightfully and no other planeswalkers should think of it as a place where they can just come and go as they please." Nicol Bolas replied and added "I have taught you the proper spells to secure a plane from other planeswalkers, so the task should be more than possible and within your limits, and since it is your native plane you could probably better convince the local population to help you than, for an example, Sarkhan could. Of course I will send him or Tezzeret to your aid if you need it."

"Sounds good father, I can contact you through the normal means if I need aid right." Naruto replied.

"Yes, the messenger hellkites as always" Nicol Bolas replied, who then added. "Be careful and remember to think things through, just like I taught you, I'll miss you my son"

"I'll miss you too father" Naruto said and then waved goodbye before planeshifting to the plane of Intemperiae.

As usual Naruto enjoyed planeshifting, the worlds were a wonderful sight to behold as he flashed through time and space, and dimensions. After the usual one and a half minute he arrived at his destination, the plane of Intemperiae. Not a place he had missed, though it did have a homely feel to it now that the mana energies were increasing.

Naruto could tell that as long as he was the only planeswalker in the area there would be more than enough energies for him, it could maybe even have enough energy for two battling planeswalkers but it might be a stretch. Naruto sat down in the mountain range where he had shifted to, it was a mere forty miles from Konoha the only place he actually had some knowledge of. As he sat down he prepared the materials for the spell, it was just a basic spell that would alert him of planeswalkers entering and leaving the plane and hide it in from prying eyes. The spell were designed in a way that made sure that only he and his father were able to watch the plane from their plane of meditation or as he would call it 'home'.

After finishing the spell he collected his belongings and headed towards the nearest town, he might be young but at least he had, had a good teacher so he knew how to get information. Naruto had made sure to check the currency of gold on the plane, because it was usually a universal currency due to its rarity. The value of gold in this plane was luckily quite high so he had no need to bring along monstrous amounts of it. Last time he had visited the plane Mirrodin, he had been surprised, gold were very cheap on that plane, and he had brought home tons of it, which he had bought for about a kilo of darksteel that he had stolen from another planeswalker at one time.

The closest town was rather big by the standards of this plane, it was called Tanzaku and even had its own fortress. Naruto figured that a fortress like that only offered little to no protection from ninjas. Before entering the city, he pulled up the hood and a mask over his face, the mask was primarily there to hide his teeth, because it could freak out some people. He had scared a farmer half to death on Kamigawa once, because he had smiled at him and the farmer believed him to be a demon, rather than a dragon or a boy.

'Ignorant people can be so much trouble' Naruto thought to himself as he walked down the street to look for an inn to stay at and a person who could evaluate the gold and exchange it for cash. So he didn't have to pay overprice for everything and endanger locals by handing gold over to them. Naruto quickly found what he looked for, a jewelers shop could usually use the gold, and they often had enough money to pay for it as well, so that's the place he tried first. The jeweler were a little skeptic of the young man stepping through his door attempting to sell him gold especially because he were wearing a mask over the lower half of his face, at least he had pulled the hood of his cloak off when entering. The jeweled had bought the gold though, after checking with the local authorities that there had been no gold stolen recently. He had then asked Naruto where he got the gold, he had told him that it was because he had sold multiple valuable artifacts to a collector and it had earned him quite the fortune as he could obviously see.

Naruto had gotten quite a good amount of money, and had asked the jeweler about the local inns. The jeweler had directed him to a rather good looking place, that wasn't too expensive, but still had a good level of class and offered breakfast and dinner, if one needed lunch though, one had to pay extra. Naruto noticed pretty quickly that compared to the locals he was rather tall, it probably had something to do with his training and the Plane of Meditations very high levels of mana. He had noticed another twelve year old, who had been about six inches shorter than he was, and just about half as muscular. Naruto reckoned that his five feet and four inches were about average for the fifteen year old locals. Also his voice was a bit deeper than most, due to the changes he had made in his physique with draconic magic.

Naruto spent the night at the local inn, and he slept fairly well, even though the way they slept on this plane was rather different from what he was used to. They slept on the floor in something called a futon. Naruto exited the inn the next morning, well rested and ready to gather information, he was pretty certain that important world news that would affect the mana flow would be the talk all over town, but he was pretty certain that it would go unnoticed by most people.

Naruto made his way through town, talking to shopkeepers, civilians and even a few of the ninja that he could find, most found him to be rather arrogant, and one had even called him an arrogant bastard and told him to get lost. Naruto had to use all of his self-control just to keep calm enough not to launch a fireball into his face. 'Violence is only practical for hostile takeover' Naruto thought to himself as he continued down the street.

He returned to the inn in the evening with his spirit dampened quite a bit, it had rained as well and he had gotten close to no results on his search. The locals had also developed some levels of despise for him because of his arrogant attitude. Naruto figured he needed to take that down a notch if he wanted any more information at all. After he finished eating his dinner he asked the innkeeper if he knew any place where he could get some information, news from other parts of the world. The innkeeper told him that the gambling den right next to his inn, had many customers from all over the land, some of whom were actually ninja as well and would usually have a lot more information than any local.

Naruto made his way to the gambling den, he entered the place, which to his surprise had no age restriction. As he entered he was greeted by a man who asked if there were any particular games he was looking to play. Naruto told the man that his primary goal was to get information on a very complicated topic and asked him if there were any high ranking ninja present. The servant informed him that gambling room number seven, currently were joined by the Sannin by the name of Tsunade, who were famed to be the best medic-nin in the entire world.

"I would like to join the game there, if you don't mind though, I'm going to observe the game a bit to get a feel for it, I hardly ever gamble you see" Naruto replied while seemingly smiling at the greeter, he also kept his tone even, so he didn't seem arrogant but rather a bit humble and good mannered.

As Naruto entered the room all attention shifted to him, he bowed slightly and presented himself as Naruto Bolas, and explained that he would observe a bit before taking part in the game. Once he finished explaining the other just quietly mumbled okay and he took place next to a woman carrying a pet pig, she looked very nervous apparently because of the gambling.

"Excuse me miss" Naruto gently said in an attempt not to scare the young woman or speak too loudly so he disturbed the people gambling. "You wouldn't happen to know who Tsunade-sama of the Sannin is? I forgot to ask for a description and can't seem to identify her."

"Um" Shizune said, she was getting worried, the stranger in the black coat, with a black mask on his face were looking for her master. She really hoped that it wasn't a bounty collector hired by one of the loan sharks Tsunade owed money. "I would like to know what you want from her before I answer that question Bolas-san"

"Oh I just want to ask her a few questions, see I am looking for something, and the information I need might only seem like rumors, but I figured that the higher rank a ninja is the more information she has, and the more details she notices. Thus I figured that I would ask her as she is supposed to be legendary." Naruto replied, Shizune could tell he was smiling beneath the mask, but she still didn't like his eyes, they bore a slight similarity to the eyes of a serpent.

"Um, she is the one in the green coat with the kanji for gamble on her back, I am Shizune her assistant, and I too am a high ranking ninja, so don't try anything funny" Shizune said harshly, to warn the young man that he was facing bad odds.

"Don't worry, I have no intention of harming either of you, like I said, I need information. I was sent here to gather information for my father and that is the only and primary objective." Naruto replied, still smiling slightly then he suddenly said "looks like your master is losing again"

"No not again" Shizune almost whispered. That exclamation amused Naruto.

"She loses often does she not?" Naruto asked as he turned his attention to Shizune once again.

Shizune sighed, and then replied "Unfortunately yes, the reason why I threatened you was because I thought you might be a bounty hunter or something, hired by one of the loan sharks she owes money due to her extensive amounts of gambling."

"Sounds like a bother, I had no idea the life of here could be challenging like that" Naruto replied, before moving to Tsunade and whispering to her "You should probably hold here, then you'll probably win"

"Why are you giving me advice, I am doing perfectly fine myself, you brat" Tsunade hissed back at him.

This ticked Naruto off a bit, but he just calmed himself down before replied back hissing slightly "I figure it's something for something, I want to ask you some questions, and you probably want to win, so figured I'd try to help you out a bit." Naruto could tell that the Sannin were thinking things through.

'Maybe I should take his advice after all' Tsunade thought, after all she hadn't had the best of luck that evening, maybe if she took his advice she could win some of her money back, and then there would be more money for sake. She decided to follow his advice but not before hissing silently at him "if I lose this, you are going to be the one pay up."

"Sure thing, I have money enough for that after all" Naruto whispered, before seating himself just behind her.

As the game dragged on a bit for the last round, everyone seemed to think that the advice Tsunade had gotten from had been a bad one because he had introduced himself as a newbie, there were throwing in money, because Tsunade had thrown in all her money. Despite all this Tsunade won, she won a bit more than she had lost that evening and decided to call it quits because she was certain that it wouldn't keep up.

"So Bolas-san, or can I call you Naruto-san instead" Tsunade said turning her attention to Naruto as they left the gambling den.

"Don't mind it either way, you're not likely to meet anyone else with my surname after all" Naruto replied, attempting to hide the pride that accompanied his surname, but it ended up still being pretty obvious.

"Ha kid, you seem pretty proud of your heritage." Tsunade said before adding "my full name is Tsunade Senju, I am the granddaughter of the man who founded Konoha, the First Hokage, and this is my apprentice Shizune Kato."

"Nice to meet both of you, I am very proud to be my father's son" Naruto replied, and added. "So do you reckon we could find someplace where we could sit down and talk instead of walking around out in the open, I bet it isn't very practical for ninja to have no place to hide."

"Ha you might be right about that, the only places that are open are bars, I hope you have no problem spending time in bars, since you aren't old enough to enter." Tsunade said, before adding "I can tell that you are not eighteen yet, but exactly how old are you Naruto-san?"

"If you must know, I am fifteen years old, and perfectly used to people drinking, I have spent evenings at bars with my father as well" Naruto replied.

"Okay, then let's get moving, the sake isn't going drink itself" Tsunade replied.

They made their way to one of the bars, they served both sake and dango, which Tsunade insisted on getting as well. As they made their way towards the bar, with Tsunade in front leading the way, and Shizune and Naruto in the back, walking silently, Naruto were taking in the scenery of the city at night. Tsunade had noticed that the young boy had lied about several things, it had been hard to detect, but she had noticed the very subtle signals. She noticed that he had lied about going to bars with his father, as well as his age and he had never even once seen a person drunk.

They soon arrived at the bar and seated themselves at a table in the corner, Tsunade had asked Naruto to put on the hood of his cloak, at least until they were seated in the corner. As the waitress came over and asked for orders, Tsunade ordered some sake, and dango, for both her and Shizune and Naruto simply ordered a single serving of dango for himself. They waited a bit in silence until the waitress returned with their order, after she had left Naruto let the hood down, so that they could properly see his face when they were talking, even though he let the mask stay as it were.

"So Naruto-san why are you wearing a mask all the time, I mean I know quite a number of people who does that, but all have different reasons for it, what is your reason, if you don't mind telling us" Tsunade said, after taking a small slurp of sake.

"Um well you see I'm not exactly like everyone else, and I tend to scare people when I don't wear the mask, and it's so hard to gather info from people who are running away screaming." Naruto said, while laughing slightly at the irony.

"Figures, tell me why were you lying about your age, as well as going to bars with your father" Tsunade said before adding. "You must understand that I am not likely to answer questions from people I don't trust."

"Ah what a bother" Naruto exclaimed with a sigh. "I figured that it didn't matter that much, and that you wouldn't notice, after all I look a bit older than I am. I'm actually twelve years old, and well my father is not really the type to go drinking, certainly not when there is anything else to do."

"Thanks for not lying this time Naruto-san. I can tell by the way you speak that you aren't exactly from this area" Tsunade said and then added. "I don't need to know where you're from, though I wouldn't mind knowing. But could you please lower your mask, trust me I've seen my share of creepy things and scary things, I doubt you'll be able to scare me"

"Well I guess it is ok, just warn me if the waitresses are coming so I can pull it up, don't want to scare them." Naruto said, he then pulled down his mask, unlike eight years ago his whisker marks were gone entirely, but the fangs in his mouth were pretty obvious once he smiled at them, all of the teeth in his mouth were sharp like a dragons, and combined with the eyes that bore slight resemblance with a serpent, that made for a scary looking face.

Shizune couldn't resist asking "Why are your teeth like that?" she sounded a bit shocked, but also terrified by it. Tsunade just looked over at her apprentice, she could understand her reaction even in the work of a ninja it wasn't every day you got to see a smile like the young boys.

"Well I made it like that myself, to be more like my father, and I have no plan on changing them from how they look now." Naruto replied, rage was seething just below the surface, Tsunade could tell that for some reason he had taken it as an insult to his father.

"I'm sorry Naruto-san, we have seen a lot of things but we expected something like a horrible scar or something, and since were medic-nin we have seen our share of those, but this is something different." Tsunade said gently, attempting to calm the young boy down, something told her that he could be very dangerous when angered. Apparently it had some level of effect, because the boy visibly calmed down, and turned his attention to Tsunade, who had put a hand on Naruto's left arm. Her expression changed rapidly, as she activated her medic jutsu to check it again, she had sensed something off with the young boy's arm. It had been different, cold and dead as if he wasn't even alive. This scared the medic, because it was a sensation she had only ever felt when performing autopsies.

"Naruto-san, what is wrong with your arm?" Tsunade asked, quietly and assessed his reaction to her question. To her surprise the boy looked at her with surprise.

"There is nothing wrong with my left arm, I can tell you are attempting to figure out why it feels different, but trust me it is not a problem." Naruto removed her hand from his arm and rolled up the sleeve, so they could see most of his arm. Then something started happening at his fingertips, it grossed both medics out to watch, but they didn't really look away either. The skin and flesh on Naruto's left arm were retracting, and once it there were no skin or flesh, only one thing were remaining that was some sort of metallic prosthesis.

"I had a little mishap during one of the trips with my father, a giant wolf bit off most of my left arm. This is an etherium-prosthesis, it is a powerful metal that can be both flexible and at the same time as hard as any steel." Naruto said as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he then added. "I use a flesh substitute spell to cover the arm with flesh and skin to make it look natural."

"Ok, well this is definitely a first" Tsunade stated in awe, never in her life had she heard of such a technique. She just had to act on this, this could help along medics all over the world, and save lives. "Say Naruto-san can that technique replace organs or something like that, and is there a possibility that you could teach me how to use that technique"

"No and no" Naruto said calmly, and awaited the female Sannin's response.

"What do you mean no" she yelled out loud as she stood up from her seat and slammed her fist into the table which shattered, it destroyed all of their sake and dango as well.

"I mean it can't regenerate organs, and no it is impossible to teach you the spell, because it is not something as simple as channeling chakra, I'm channeling the energies of the area around me to an energy source that people like me refer to as mana, and only a select few with a certain gene setting can channel these energies" Naruto explained calmly, and continued. "Besides that fact the spell can only affect the body of the user not someone else. So if you want the technique for medical purposes there is absolutely no way I can help you, I'm sorry but that is how it is."

Tsunade was baffled, she had thought she had found the legendary skill she had been looking for while traveling, well at least she had been looking for it until the gambling took overhand. But she wasn't going to give up, maybe this 'spell' as he called it were a technique derived from the original because it was too complicated for the boy and his father who probably was the one who taught him the 'spell'.

"Mind telling me how you came up with that spell" Tsunade sat down again and leaned back in her seat again, the focus of the entire bar were still on them, people had noticed that the legendary Sannin was there and she wanted something from the boy, exactly what it was they didn't know, but she could be scary if someone crossed her path.

"I don't mind telling you it's origin no, but it is not going to help you, unless you know how to planeshift that is, you're not going to examine the original, and it is not exactly healthy to do so either" Naruto replied keeping up the calm façade.

"What do you mean planeshift, what in the First's name are you talking about?" Tsunade asked Naruto, now a bit concerned about the young boys mentality, he seemed a bit like one of Orochimaru's experiments, he was devoted to his 'father' and had obviously been scientifically augmented.

"I am talking about the ability to travel between planes of existence, travel to other worlds that exist in parallel universes." Naruto explained his voice calm as ever, he then continued to add. "It is a very rare power to possess less than one in a billion people are born with what we refer to as the 'spark' that signifies a planeswalker."

"I find that hard to believe, I have never once heard of a person having a planeswalker spark, not even a rumor about one either." Tsunade replied, one could easily hear that she was far from convinced, she continued. "Even though there is less than one in a billion people born with such a spark, it seems too far-fetched, even for a medic-nin like me who used to work with a maniac, whose dream and only ambition were obtaining immortality."

"Sounds like an interesting guy, it is certainly a possible achievement, but complicated nonetheless" Naruto replied thought clouding his mind. "I believe he must be quite insane to think that he can achieve that in just one lifetime."

"He is certainly insane, he cared nothing for anyone, and he'd destroy anyone who got in his way. Ultimately he was banished from Konoha where were from, for experimenting on his fellow shinobi and citizens" Tsunade replied, she thought that it would be better to keep him talking, he apparently had a lot of knowledge despite his young age. "But anyway sorry about yelling at you before, I let my anger get the best of me because I thought I would have found the medical ninjutsu I was looking for, it is legendary and as such it could be anywhere or just a legend."

"A legendary jutsu you say, sounds like an interesting objective, it could help a lot of people, and I take that is what your motive is, it is not likely immortality, judging by the way you talked about your previous teammate" Naruto replied, all the while smiling a bit, this served to make him seem even more scary and sinister. "So if you don't mind, could we get back to my questions, I believe that was the price for the advice, and not the other way around."

"Sure, but would you mind if I ask one last question? who is your father?" Tsunade questioned the young 'planeswalker' as he referred to himself as.

"My father's name is Nicol Bolas, the Elder Dragon, and before you ask, yes he is actually a dragon, scales, claws, teeth, fire breath, the whole package, and on top of that he is the only dragon planeswalker." Naruto replied proudly he then started to explain to the two baffled kunoichi what he was looking for. "So about three days ago I planeshifted to this plane, it was for the sole purpose of identifying the source for the increase in the mana flow of this plane. Until just recently the plane was worthless for planeswalkers, it contained to little mana to even wage a small scale war against the local population or other planeswalkers for that matter. Now recently, more precisely ten days ago, the mana flow just increased drastically, at the moment a battle between two very strong planeswalkers would be quite possible. In comparison just a few weeks ago the plane wouldn't even provide enough mana for a single planeswalker to take control of even the smallest hidden village. Now is something else, the mana flow is vast enough to wage war against even the biggest and most powerful hidden village."

Just as Naruto finished the sentence and drew in breath to continue his explanation, Tsunade interrupted. "So this mana flow what exactly is it? I mean I get the fact that it is energy in the world around us, but what makes it different from the sage chakra, collected from the nature by my other teammate Jiraiya when he enters sage mode?"

"I am not entirely sure how this sage mode you refer to work, so the answer is not necessarily correct. But I think the main difference is where it is created, sage chakra is created by nature if my guess is correct, it is produced by all living things in nature. Mana on the other hand is created by the elements, each element has its own source of mana, change in climate or terrain could change the type of mana that flows, but not increase the total flow." Naruto replied, his voice distant and thoughtful, even the most brain-dead genin would have been able to tell that he was far from certain about his speculations about the sage chakra.

"So even if the entire world would be covered in water the mana flow would remain the same, and only change type?" Tsunade questioned, she thought that the primary concept of the two energies were roughly the same, but she had to be sure.

"That is correct, we divide the different types of mana by color, when gathered in huge amounts, and each type of mana radiates their own color." Naruto explained before moving on to what he was talking about before he was interrupted. "But as I was about to say before I was interrupted, the mana flow increased drastically, and I am here for two reasons, to first make sure that the plane doesn't become a new planeswalker battlefield, and to find out what the cause of the increase is."

"Well if you need information about that I am pretty certain that we can't help you, unfortunately we had no clue about mana in the first place, and we certainly didn't notice the increase in its flow." Tsunade said the added "We at the very least need to know what could trigger such an occurrence."

"The problem is, we don't know how it happened, we have no clue at all, it is the first and only time something like this has happened, not once in the several billion years planeswalkers have existed, have something like this occurred." Naruto replied thoughtfully, he then added "It could be anything from newly introduced artifacts, the plane expanding or maybe even a machine of unknown origin being triggered and powering up. People like that previous teammate of yours might have stumbled across it and accidently activating it. It is annoying how many different possibilities that could be the cause behind this occurrence."

"I am not sure whether or not we have heard anything about something like that. One thing we do know, is that recently hunting for artifacts have become a popular pastime, they actually find interesting stuff every once in a while." Tsunade replied "More importantly, hidden villages receive a lot of requests these days for ninjas to deal with booby trapped doors and the like. If artifacts or old machinery in hidden places could be the cause, then there is a good chance that the cause could be found in one of the hidden villages."

"Sounds promising, I have heard of artifacts called Caged Suns, these artifacts that my father told me about could be the source, but they can also be extremely dangerous. According to one of the planeswalker history books, that also held the law that forbade the construction of Caged Suns for several reasons, two-hundred Caged Suns were used by a planeswalker once, some four-hundred years ago, he caused a whole plane to collapse and was torn to pieces, due to the mana surge. The increase of the flow were said to be so great that the entire multiverse shook." Naruto told the Tsunade and Shizune, who looked even more baffled by the information, the revelation that the energy could very well destroy their world, were a bit scary to say the least.

"So could you explain to me what these suns look like, and what it takes to activate them?" Tsunade questioned, she wanted to help protect her world after all. "So we can be on the lookout for them, and make sure we don't activate one if we come across it."

Naruto snickered a bit, even though the woman had a hard time to believe him in the start she had started to believe him, sometimes the truth did actually work, though to him deceit was preferred. "You don't have to worry that much, the plane that collapsed had an original mana flow that were more than six-thousand times the flow this plane currently have, and the planeswalker multiplied that by two, two-hundred times, increasing the mana flow up to many billions times the mana flow on this plane in an instant, if you increase anything that fast, it is bound to go wrong."

"Phew, I was actually getting a little nervous about potentially being blown to smithereens, it was never very high on my list of ways to die" Tsunade replied lightly and smiled at Naruto, who also laughed a bit at the rather morbid joke.

"Well it has been a nice evening ladies, but I think I will have to retreat to my quarters at the inn I stay at, I am only twelve after all and get tired easily." Naruto said with a yawn, showing off all of the pointy teeth in his mouth. "It has been a most rewarding talk, I didn't dare hope for this much success during the first week of my search."

"I guess it has, I could keep an eye out for those Caged Suns if you tell me what they look like" Tsunade offered to Naruto who had drawn his mask up over his mouth and nose once again. "Oh I almost forgot, I could help you in another way what do you say if I recommend you to my old teacher, the Third Hokage of Konoha, Hiruzen Sarutobi, to have them bring you along for a small amount of cash, I figure you can hold your own in a treasure hunt. With my recommendation you could be put on those missions, and have some of your travel expenses covered, but in exchange I want any scrolls about medical ninjutsu you come across on your travels, simple or complicated, complete and incomplete. Do you think we have an agreement, I'll let you think about it till tomorrow, meet me here at three pm, if you agree. I will wait at most half an hour for you."

"I will think about the offer thanks, now I bid you a farewell and a good night" Naruto said as he pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and left the bar.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2.**

**Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: As always I own neither Naruto nor Magic the Gathering.**

The next morning Naruto woke rather early, everything considered at least, he had noticed that when he got home that evening it had already been almost four in the morning. So getting up at around eleven o'clock wasn't too bad in Naruto's opinion, he also wasn't too tired. The part about not being tired surprised him quite a bit, but maybe it was the lesser demon that his father had found out had been sealed in his stomach, apparently a short time after his birth.

Naruto walked around Tanzaku town, taking a peek at his watch every once in a while, he really didn't want to miss his appointment with Tsunade. Naruto got bored of looking through the town rather quickly, and sat down next to the entrance of the bar, and took out one of the spellbooks he had brought for study. The book contained information on different relics of the past, how to use them and more importantly what they could do. The spellbook also contained spells that Naruto found to be ideal for treasure hunting, most of these spells were used very often by planeswalkers on the plane called Zendikar. The plane was by many regarded as a giant treasure throve with relics more powerful than anything else, but some of the relics found in the book he were currently reading, were a lot more powerful than anything found on Zendikar so far, among these relics were the Caged Suns.

As the hours passed, Naruto kept staring into his book, reading through the complicated scriptures of the natives of Zendikar. The ancient language wasn't widely spread, not even on its plane of origin, but despite of this fact there were still hundreds or maybe thousands of ancient writings, still written in the language of the Zendikar natives.

"What are you reading Naruto-san" Shizune asked, startling the young blonde, who wasn't aware of her presence.

"It's a book from the plane of Zendikar, it's a plane filled with secret caves, and treasure hunting is one of the biggest sectors of employment on Zendikar. So I figured that reading up on how to disarm traps, as well as detecting them, would be a practical pass-time since I am supposed to be a professional in the field of treasure hunting." Naruto replied, Shizune could tell he was smiling at her.

"Did you wait here for a long time, Naruto-san" Tsunade asked the blonde planeswalker, who had just closed his book and stuffed it back into his backpack, he had checked out of the inn, so that he could get on the move, after all time waited for no one, not even planeswalkers.

"Nah, I waited for just about two and a half hour, I started out looking around the city, but it ended up getting boring. The buildings are very similar to those found on Kamigawa, and they are far more majestic, Kamigawa even has ninja as well, even though I am unsure whether or not they are similar to the ninja of Konoha or other hidden villages on this plane." Naruto replied, he then added "I'd rather sit around learning new things, than walk around to go through things I know a lot about."

Tsunade had to laugh a bit at this, she wasn't exactly used to serious twelve year olds, who would rather read than run around and play, but then again she had been away from Konoha for quite a while, she was certain that a lot of the ninja the village still produced a lot of would be quite serious compared to the children from the villages.

"So when you say that a lot of things on that plane Kamigawa are similar to this plane, is it like some parallel world, or is it entirely different? Also I would like to know, is there another me on one of the other planes, an exact clone of me or something like that?" Tsunade asked.

"There is never two of the exactly same person, for that would create problems, for practical causes there are not even two people in any of the dimensions that are exactly the same. Many know how to create physically identical clones, and a few can even copy their personality into these clones, but they don't last forever, and hardly ever live to be half the age of their creator." Naruto answered, he had read that many places, including the Plane of Intemperiae, harbored people who could make clones of themselves, and some were clones more practical than others. "Kamigawa is very different from this world, at least with whatever understanding I have, let alone races, the spirits are closely linked with the world of Kamigawa, then there is the snake tribes, the fox tribes and of course the rat tribes. There are ogres as well, inhabiting the mountains, then there are the humans, they are clearly outnumbering most of the other races, but what the other races lack in number, they more than make up for in strength and skill. Perhaps the fox tribes are the most dangerous, they are very skilled warriors, and their spiritualists are in a league of their own."

"A fox tribe you say, how different are they from foxes on our plane." Tsunade asked, she was interested, maybe the fox demon, commonly referred to as the Kyuubi was originally from the Kamigawa plane.

"First and probably biggest difference is the fact that the fox tribes, walk standing upright, and they even have thumbs, which enables them to use tools. They also wear clothes, they are prominent warriors like I told you before, they study the way of the samurai, their most famed warrior is probably Sensei Golden-tail, he has trained many of the strongest samurai to ever walk on the plane of Kamigawa. Their leader is known only as Eight-and-a-Half-Tails, I think that it is actually his name, but the way they name their children are a bit odd if you ask me, they name their children after physical traits or their personality as a cub."

To say that Shizune and Tsunade were shocked would be an understatement, the medic-nin duo were having a hard time understanding exactly how similar the foxes were to humans. They figured that the rat and snake tribes would be similar, but Tsunade wanted to know, it interested her to no end that such beings existed.

"Then what about the snake and rat tribes, are they similar to humans as well, are they just as different from their animal counterpart on this plane." Tsunade questioned.

"Yes, they are quite similar to humans as well, the rat tribes are a lot smaller than humans though, but they make excellent ninja, no barrier can keep them out for long, their teeth can chew through almost anything, it is quite terrifying really. The snakes are similar, though quite scaly, as one should expect, they also are different because they actually have four arms. Master marksmen of the Orochi tribe use two bows at the same time, and combined with their maneuverability and adaption to the forests they live in, an Orochi ambush can lay waste to any ogre legion in just about half a minute." Naruto replied, the subject interested him, and he enjoyed talking about it, that much was evident. "Now why don't we move inside, and discuss things over a bit of dango instead, I'm actually a quite hungry by now, I didn't eat that much during breakfast."

The trio moved into the bar, and sat down at the table next to the one they had sat at the previous evening, currently someone were cleaning up after the mess they had made, and getting the area ready for the new table. Tsunade had paid for the repairs the previous evening before leaving, she made sure that they would be allowed into the bar again, so they could have their little meeting. When they were seated a nervous waitress, apparently a new trainee Tsunade reckoned, since the other staff was snickering in the background as she made her way to the table.

"M-m-may I t-take y-your order?" the nervous maid stuttered, while nervously tapping her pen against her notepad. "Um, and p-p-please don't w-wreck the t-table this t-t-time."

"Don't worry we won't" Tsunade replied she then ordered four servings of dango, and the waitress, who looked pretty relieved, moved over to the bar to place the order so the chef could get started on making their servings.

"So back to the topic of the Kamigawa races, are they related to the tailed beasts on our plane, I mean did they planeshift to this plane or something similar." Tsunade continued, it worried her a bit that there were a possibility that a relative of the Kyuubi might exist on another plane.

"Quite unlikely, most creatures aren't able to planeshift, hardly any non-humanoids are able to do so at all. Though it is a possibility that a planeswalker could have summoned it to this plane from another plane, it is highly unlikely if you take into account the fact that the mana flow was incredibly weak until just recently." Naruto replied, thoughts clouding his eyes.

"So now that I know that much, we can get down to business, I told you last night that I wanted all scrolls of medic-ninjutsu, though there quite possibly will be only a few of such scrolls, any scroll could help me in my search to find that legendary medic-ninjutsu. The jutsu is supposed to be able to regenerate lost limbs and even heal mortally wounded individuals as well as regenerate organs. This quite frankly would be a major breakthrough, and could make sure that less people dies during wars and missions." Tsunade explained, her voice filled with excitement at the prospect, but Naruto also detected a bit of sorrow in her voice. He was certain she had lost loved ones during wars or missions, and they were the primary reason she found her work to be important.

"Well I can certainly agree to that and as long as I can gather the information and relics I need, namely the Caged Suns or artifacts with similar properties, I have no problem, and having my traveling expenses covered, at least just a bit of it, by the money earned from the missions, this will easily be worth my while." Naruto replied, he had removed the mask covering the lower part of his face again, his smile no longer seemed to bother them, but he had scared the staff at the bar quite a bit, they had noticed his teeth after all. "Figure I should lose the cloak, it seems a bit too sneaky for a treasure hunting specialist, also I think it will get in my way during the missions, I figure rivaling clients might hire different ninja, and I might have to fight over some of the treasure." He added before getting out a book, it was rather big, especially by local standards, usually it was hanging at the side, he opened up to a page at the beginning of the book, it was blank. He then muttered a few indiscernible words, and his cloak disappeared into the book, the staff who had been looking at the trio stared wide-eyed at this, none of them had ever seen anything like that. Even Shizune and Tsunade were surprised by this particular skill.

"Okay before we agree to this deal and I hand you the recommendation and send a letter to the old man, I would like to know, are you proficient in the art of sealing?" Tsunade asked with a hint of amazement in her voice.

"Nope, not at all, quite frankly I suck at any kind of seals, the only reason I can seal things into this thing at all is the fact that it is a very special relic, it's a planeswalker journal, a book for the planeswalker to record things from his many travels, as well as store equipment he might need for later. There is no limit to how many objects can be stored in it, but there is a limit to how big those objects can be, though I have no idea what that limit is, I only use mine for small things." Naruto replied.

'Incredible' was all Tsunade could think, when she was told about the planeswalker journal, it was a very practical device, that didn't require even the slightest skill in sealing to use. The trio received their dango, and the one to deliver the dango were the waitress who had taken their order, despite Naruto's rather savage looks she was visibly calmer than when she took the order, she had even smiled quickly at Naruto. Naruto interpreted it as a sign of good mannerism, but lack of control, he believed she didn't want to stare at his teeth, as it was considered rude in most societies.

Naruto and Tsunade finished the deal and sealed it with a hand shake, Tsunade had also told Naruto that she would lay off the gambling a bit to start her research of the subject again, she even considered going back to Konoha, even if only for a short while, to research a bit there, though she quickly changed her mind because she was sure that the memories as well as the missions she would probably be given would hinder her studies.

After a little while Naruto said his farewells to the two medic-nin, and started his two day journey to the hidden village Konoha, as he left he waved back at the two women, smiling beneath his mask, now he only had to go to Konoha, it had been a long time since he had set foot in that village, and he hardly had any memories of the place, and most of those he had weren't exactly pleasant. With those thoughts in mind he departed, he walked all the way because he hated the other travel options, and summoning Crosis to fly would be a bit much, and would probably raise more suspicion than he needed. Other than that he couldn't arrive before the letter that informed the Hokage that he was coming, it said in two days from that day, and if he came before, well questions would be annoying he had had enough of explaining the simple principle of planeshifting and magic to unknowing individuals, though it had been fun, because of their reaction, the amusement was rather short lived, after her outburst the night before, the rest became pretty dull.

Naruto travelled under a camouflage spell he had learned from Sarkhan, it could supposedly even keep ninja off his tail, though Naruto was a bit skeptic, but then again not all ninja could be equally good. One thing was certain, the spell had kept bandits off his back, he had walked right past some of them, and the most vigilant of those bandits had stopped only because they had heard a sound. All in all his trip were without incident, he had stayed at inns during the night, to avoid sleeping in the open, even with the camouflage spell for protection , he couldn't feel safe, and would wake often if he slept outside.

Two days later Naruto arrived at the gates of Konoha, constructions like the gates were no longer of interest to him, he had seen much more interesting defensive and civilian structures during his travels on the many planes his father frequented and kept an eye on. The gates were not really anything special, apart from their size, they were huge by most standards.

The guard had received a notification from the Hokage, he received it during morning briefing, they were expecting a young treasure hunter specialist, and collector who had been recommended by the Sannin Tsunade, who had been so kind as to arrange for a deal with him, that wouldn't really impact the earnings that Konoha would make from the mission. The treasure hunter who were described as a young blond boy, about fourteen years of age, though he actually was no more than twelve years old. He had orange eyes with elongated pupils, not quite like a serpent, but similar in a way. His hair was rather long, and kept in a ponytail in the back. The lower part of his face would be covered by a mask, and he would be wearing simple clothes, in brown, black or grey, because of security reasons, both while travelling and while working. Other than that the description was lacking, no important facial features, apparently he didn't have other outstanding features, the guardsman knew those kinds of people, they could often blend into crowds, and then go completely unnoticed, because of that ability they could be extremely dangerous.

As the guard sat there thinking about this supposed specialist, he spotted a boy walking towards the gates. The boy was carrying a backpack, and at his side a book was swinging, held up by two chains, that were fastened to the shoulder on the opposite side. The guard could see the mask, as well as his eyes, they were orange and the elongated pupils looked rather creepy, maybe it was just him but he really reminded him of something malignant, something like the dragons of the eastern islands, far east of the land of water, he had heard that they existed, and he had seen drawings of them, terrifying creatures to say the least. The boy also appeared to be originating from the eastern islands, maybe he travelled across the ocean to the mainland in search of adventure and to make a proper living while doing that.

As Naruto neared the gates he started heading in direction of the guards, according to Tsunade he was to check in with them first, to avoid problems and misunderstandings. When he got closer to the stand one of the guards waved him over, and once he stood in front of the desk, the guard spoke.

"Naruto Bolas I presume, we received words of your arrival from the Hokage, you are to head to the Hokage tower immediately after arriving, he wanted to discuss your assignment to the treasure hunting mission as soon as possible. After all we get a lot of requests for those kinds of missions at the moment. An escort will be here shortly." The guard said as he went to get the escort.

"So, isn't this boring?" Naruto asked the other guard while he waited.

"It can be sometimes, but it is an important job, we are the first line of defense against infiltrators." The guard replied, he then looked to the left where an Anbu wearing a cat mask were approaching, accompanied by the Chuunin Guard.

"Cat here will be the one to escort you to the Hokage Tower, she is one of our best kunoichi so I suggest not trying anything stupid." The guard said, before moving to his seat at the gate watch again.

"Please follow me Bolas-san." Cat said, Naruto noticed that there was hardly any emotion to trace in her voice. 'She's definitely dangerous' Naruto thought as he followed her, and nodding a quick thank you to the guards before he left.

It took about five minutes to walk to the Hokage Tower, Cat pointed out to him which building it was. Naruto thought that for a building used as central for governing the city it was rather small, he was more used to giant castles and even larger towers, why governments seemed to like towers were a bit unclear to him, but he knew dragons enjoyed sitting at the top of towers, apparently it was good as a vantage point.

When they arrived, Cat was greeted by a man wearing a mask over the lower portion of his face, just like Naruto did, but he was also wearing his headband over his left eye. Naruto waited and listened while Cat and the man whose name apparently was Kakashi Hatake were having a conversation.

"So you finally passed a team huh, Kakashi-senpai." Cat said, Naruto could tell that something about it amused her.

"Yeah, well they actually got the point of the test, unlike all the other teams I was supposed to teach" Kakashi replied, his voice calm and uncaring. "What about you, how is Anbu working out for you."

"It so and so, not really anything special, I am mostly on guard duty within the city boundaries, today for an example I am escorting this 'specialist' here to see the Hokage, apparently he was recommended by Tsunade of the Sannin, so he must at the very least be quite good, or else she just owed someone a lot of money and had to pull some strings in Konoha for this boy's family so she could get rid of some of the debt." Cat replied, her tone even again, almost emotionless. Despite the insinuation that he had no skill, Naruto kept calm, it didn't matter to him what humans thought of him, he knew just how powerful he was and the dragons confirmed it.

"Is that so, well anyway it's going to be interesting to work with the guy at least, he's the one behind you right?" Kakashi replied, as he brought out his book and started reading it.

"Well I better get going Kakashi-senpai, don't want to be late for an appointment with the Hokage, it's not like time waits for him." Cat said as she started walking in through the front entrance, waving at Kakashi and his students. Naruto made a mental note to ask about the students of Kakashi, he had already come up with names to remember the students by, based on appearance and emotional state, pink haired girl, angry kid, and emotionless kid.

They went up the stairway, to the office of the Hokage, at the very top, which Naruto considered both strategically right and wrong, depending on the foes the Hokage might have. If he had many foes who could fly above the city, it was a bad idea to locate his office at the very top, but at the same time it gave the Hokage a good overlook of the city.

When they reached the top, they waited for the secretary to announce their arrival to the old Hokage. They didn't have to wait long, before they were welcomed into the office, to Naruto this place seemed rather average, compared to his father's study rooms. Naruto was used to much higher ceilings, with bookshelves at every wall, going all the way to the ceiling, and there were hardly any desks at all, instead Nicol Bolas preferred to simply have the books floating around him.

"Welcome to Konoha Bolas-san, please have a seat." The old Hokage said greeting the young planeswalker with a warm smile. He then added "I hope you had a nice trip."

"Thank you Hokage-sama, the trip was rather uneventful, which may or may not be a good thing." Naruto replied in an even tone. Meanwhile Cat left the room to get back to guard duties, silently closing the door. "Now I would like to get started as soon as possible, it would be most appreciated if we can get down to business."

"Of course, but first I need some more information about you, I hope you understand, that I can't send my ninja on a mission with a person I know next to nothing about, especially not if their life may depend on that person." Hiruzen Sarutobi stated, the old man now looked like a seasoned leader.

"Well, I guess you need to know a bit about my heritage, as well as where I am from, also what skills I possess?" Naruto replied, Hiruzen simply nodded his reply. "Well for starters my father's name is Nicol Bolas and he's a dragon. I've never known my mother, according to father she died shortly after she had given birth to me. I was born on the eastern islands, the only place that dragons reside, and for the most part I spent my time in the mountains and in my father's study rooms, studying mana, one of the energies that flows freely in nature, I've learned through rigorous training and study to command that energy and I am able to use a type of magic, a bit similar to the jutsu you ninja use, though they are very different at the core, the effects can be somewhat the same, as an example, I know that the Uchiha clan of Konoha were famed for their fire jutsu. The grand fireball, which according to my father's study books is a rite of manhood in the Uchiha clan, have a similar opposite, which I have learned to channel as well. Other than that I have several spells that help me get past many of the more advanced traps in dungeons where ancient relics are kept."

To say Sarutobi was surprised would be an understatement, he had never heard of anything like mana, though he had heard the word spells before, it was more often than not in relation to street magicians who would entertain the small children with small tricks, which for a trained ninja was very easy to see through. Even so the most surprising fact, was that this boy's father was an actual dragon, he had heard about them and read a lot about them, but he never thought that once in his life he would actually meet one or even a descendant of one of them.

"So you say that you're a dragon, or by the sounds of it a half-dragon?" Sarutobi asked Naruto, Naruto could easily tell that he had caught the old man's interest.

"Yes, I am a half dragon, hope you don't mind though." Naruto said as he removed the mask, that covered the lower portion of his face, to reveal the sharp teeth and fangs, in his mouth. "After all, I am not here to burn your village to the ground or steal your sheep or cattle, or whatever things dragons have been accused of throughout the history."

"No, I don't mind, I just never though that I would see a dragon in my lifetime, let alone a half-dragon." Sarutobi replied, laughing slightly, his heritage was only slightly shown in his features, his eyes and his teeth were just about all that would give him away.

"Good, now can we establish a business deal, also I would like to know if you know if there are any apartments available, I would like to have some permanent quarters of lodging in Konoha." Naruto asked Sarutobi, whilst smiling at the old man. The smile seemed a little scary thanks to the young man's teeth.

"Most certainly, I do believe one of my apprentices own an apartment building in the center of the town, and for the business, we can offer genin level pay for the missions, as well as cover the expenses for the apartment. This should be more than enough for you, unless you are expecting luxury in which case we will have to refuse the offer." Sarutobi said, Naruto could tell, that there was no negotiating the offer.

"I think that sounds reasonable, the genin level pay is sufficient for everyday living expenses, am I right in assuming that?" Naruto asked, he didn't exactly care for the pay, but what kind of specialist would just ignore money as a factor when deciding whether or not he would take the job.

"It is most likely going to leave a bit of leftover money, assuming the missions are a success, you're most likely not going to need to repair ninja equipment and replace lost ninja items." Sarutobi replied, he hoped that it would be enough, even though the boy's primary goal wasn't money, he could tell it still mattered a to him.

"Hmm, I don't see any problems then, honestly I was hoping for a bit more, seeing as you are the largest of the five main nations, but I guess anything that gives me any level of possible earnings is more than good enough for me. After all if it was money I needed the most I would just ask my father." Naruto said, smiling at the Hokage, who once again were surprised by how creepy the young man could look.

"Good, now that that is settled, I would like to inform you that I got a request today for a mission of the kind you're specialized in. Meet me in front of this tower tomorrow morning at seven, also I suggest wearing that mask over your face, so you don't creep out the people you're supposed to be working with, the way you smile, can be interpreted as being predatory rather than friendly or a sign of happiness." Sarutobi explained while packing away a report about the deal.

"Figures, it even surprised Tsunade and Shizune a bit at first, and they're medics one of whom is a former teammate of the Snake Sannin Orochimaru, at least that is what I've understood so far." Naruto replied, while he pulled the mask up in front of his face.

"Here is the key for your new apartment, you don't have to worry about furniture because the apartment already has everything that you may need, at least until after you return from your first mission." Sarutobi said as he got up from his chair at the desk. "I've asked for Cat to show you the way to the new apartment."

"Thank you very much." Naruto replied, he then left the office, the Anbu called Cat were already waiting for him in the hallway outside the door. She showed him the way to his new apartment, and then left him to his own devices. Naruto prepared himself for the mission before he went to sleep, for dinner he had gotten some ramen from a nearby ramen stand, Naruto thought that it was surprisingly good. He hadn't expected that kind of quality and the price wasn't too bad either. Also the owners were very kind, and had been very fun to talk to, he had even surprised himself a bit, when he had started a conversation with the owners daughter, about her family and life in Konoha in general, he had even told her a lot about his own life, how his father was, and what he was, he had also told her about magic and shown her a few of the lesser spells.

**The next morning**

Naruto woke around six o'clock the next morning, he had gotten plenty of sleep and felt ready for his first assignment. He ate breakfast and showered before getting dressed, he then packed his backpack and headed for the Hokage Tower.

When Naruto arrived at the tower, he met up with the Hokage and followed him into the room where the Hokage would assign and brief his ninja about the missions. As they were walking to the briefing room, Sarutobi briefed Naruto about the mission and otherwise talked idly to get a feeling for the boy's personality.

"So Naruto, are you satisfied with the apartment" Sarutobi asked, any eventual clients and ninja weren't supposed to be there for another thirty or so minutes.

"Hmm, they're okay, it seems to be in a fine condition and I slept relatively well, even though I felt as if I was being watched." Naruto said, he had of course noticed the ninja spying on him, but to him it didn't matter much, he interpreted it as a sign that Sarutobi was a careful and seasoned ninja leader.

"That's very good to hear" Sarutobi said, before arriving at the door to the briefing room. "Now were here, the team aren't going to show up for at the very least next ten minutes, but while we wait I'll brief you about the mission, more specifically which things I'd prefer you handle on the mission. The rest you'll find out when I brief the genin team providing you with protection and support."

"Thanks for the information, one fast question though, have the genin or at the very least their teacher been briefed about my situation." Naruto asked Sarutobi as they took up seats in the room, Naruto to the side, and Sarutobi and the table, with the two stacks of paper, obviously containing mission requests, Naruto noticed that the two stacks of paper were marked with a C and a D.

"I have informed their teacher and asked her to brief her genin during morning practice, so I expect them to be aware that you are superior to them in rank, when it comes to the part that brings you into the ruins." Sarutobi replied, as he picked up the mission that were at the very top of the pile marked with the C. "Now these ruins are located in the land of waves, recently one of my genin teams completed a mission in that country to protect a bridge builder from Gato, who was a powerful crime lord and tradesman, who attempted to take over the country by taking over all business, he was killed by a missing nin hired by himself, simply because of the fact that Gato turned on him when he had failed killing the bridge builder and lost the battle against one of my finer jounin named Kakashi. The country should be stable by now, it's been two weeks since they returned, but unlike before when Gato was in control of almost all transport to and from the islands, the land is now open to treasure hunting. Your job will primarily be to deal with any ancient traps made to protect the treasures, also you will have to discuss with the daimyo of the Land of Waves, as to which ruins to look in, after all it is the daimyo himself who hired us."

"So I am to decide where we look first, which ruins I believe to be the ones that hide the most valuable secrets and then prioritize those am I correct." Naruto asked, this was a bit more than he had thought he'd receive for a first mission, not something unexpected, he just didn't think that he would start out by racing other treasure hunters to the treasures.

"That is exactly what your job is, I know it is tricky, but the daimyo probably have a lot more information than we have." Sarutobi replied, before looking at the watch hanging on the wall. "Now you teammates should arrive within the next five minutes, and I expect the briefing to take no more than fifteen minutes, and so you should be ready to leave within the next hour, we can't waste too much time."

A few minutes later a group of genin lead by their female jounin instructor entered the briefing room, Naruto remained in his seat, for this mission he had chosen his grey cloak, the different shades of grey made it harder to spot in the ruins at night, which could come in handy if he needed to hide from an enemy. The ninja couldn't see his face at all, due to the mask he wore on the lower portion of his face and the current position of the cloak's hood, they could see only the grey mask.

"Good morning, let me introduce you all to Naruto Bolas, a treasure hunting specialist from the islands far east of the water country, as you should already have been informed, he is going to be the one in charge of finding and maybe disarming traps that might hinder you, or even prevent you from completing your mission. Naruto let me introduce you to Hinata Hyuuga, Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame and Kurenai Yuhi" Sarutobi explained, pointing to each of the members of team eight as he introduced them. "Now, if you don't know already your mission is to recover national treasures and writings from ruins in the Land of Waves, as this country only recently have been opened to the outside, you will most likely be the only treasure hunters, at least when you start your mission, later other groups of treasure hunters, grave robbers or bandits might get involved, often these treasures can become an easy meal for them as some of the many collectors pay large amounts of money for just a single one of these precious artifacts, therefore the Wave Daimyo have chosen to hire us, so he can salvage as many artifacts as possible."

"Understood Hokage-sama" all members of team 8 said in unison.

"I see you're packed and ready Bolas-san, meet us at the main gate in thirty minutes." Kurenai said she then turned to face her students, "You have thirty minutes, we meet up at the main gate in thirty minutes."

Team eight then left quickly to pack up their equipment, Naruto also started to make his way out of the room.

"You are aware that it takes at most fifteen minutes to walk from the tower to the main gate right?" Sarutobi asked as Naruto opened the door.

"I am aware of that, I just prefer that we leave as soon as possible, after all we can probably salvage some ten artifacts more if we get there fifteen minutes earlier." Naruto replied, smiling underneath his mask, he then turned his face away from the Hokage once again and made his way towards the gate.

'well at the very least he's motivated, and I think he's going to be an important ally, even though I can't quite judge his true motives.' The old Hokage thought as he waited for Iruka to arrive to help him assign missions.

**Hope**** you enjoyed it.**

**Heretic-kun**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Once I again I figure I'll have to say this… I own neither Naruto nor Magic the Gathering.**

The team met up with Naruto at the main gate, within the thirty minutes limit set by their sensei. They had all packed and were ready for the mission, Naruto could tell that the genin were nervous around him. He kind of understood why they were nervous, they knew little to nothing about him, practically nothing more than his name and his line of work. Of course his line of work was a lot more innocent than theirs, but he used similar skills.

"So Bolas-san, how fast and for how long do you think you would be able to travel, after all it is still quite far and I need to know if I have to plan a rest" Kurenai asked as they started to walk away from the gate.

''I'll be fine, I have my own means of travelling no need to be concerned with me slowing you down'' he responded politely.

"Oh is that so, I think you might be underestimating the speed of a ninja, just because you're a specialist doesn't mean you're the only one with tricks up your sleeve" Kurenai said confidence evident in her voice.

"I have no idea what ninjas from around here are capable of, but I am sure that the Hokage informed you about the fact that I use spells." Naruto replied calmly. "I do believe however that when it comes to travel my spells are much more practical than your jutsus, and much less exhausting."

"Very well then, we travel at full speed, were stopping just inside wave country for rest, and then we'll reach the daimyo's palace afternoon tomorrow." Kurenai ordered. "If you are going to perform any spells so you can keep up the pace, then I suggest you do it now"

"Very well" Naruto said, as he started moving his hands in special patterns, one got the impression he was grabbing something in the air and gathering it, as his hands slowed down he muttered a few words, the ninja couldn't make out any of the words he said, not even Kurenai. As he finished the spell and his movements stopped, a pattern of red energy appeared around him, then the circle turned fully red, and as the spell ended a Naruto stood on the back of a rather large dragon. When the spell was finished the dragon raised its head towards the sky and let out a bellowing roar. "This is my friend Crosis, he is one of my most valued companion."

To say that the ninja were surprised would be a huge understatement, Kiba and Shino had never even once heard of dragons, Hinata and Kurenai had however heard about them, mostly from fairy tales, but Kurenai had once heard that far east of the water country across one of the most dangerous seas, on the eastern islands where this boy originated from, there was dragons and supposedly more than just a few. Dragons in that area were supposed to be praised as gods, and villagers would often sacrifice cattle, when asking for protection from the majestic and terrifying beasts.

"You have the friendship of a dragon? I can't believe this, I've heard that dragons serve no one, not even other dragons and certainly not humans." Kurenai said, surprise written all over her face.

"I don't know if the Hokage told you this, but I come from a very important family, and practically grew up alongside Crosis here, were almost of equal age." Naruto replied, Kurenai could easily hear that he was proud of his heritage, and of his friend. "Also since he is a friend of mine, he isn't serving me, he is helping me out because that is what friends do, and dragons help their friends and family, most of them are far more loyal than humans, and would never think of harming a relative, no matter how far out on the family tree that dragon is."

"I see" Kurenai replied, thoughtfully before asking. "How come you are able to summon him here, usually summoning is very complicated, while the spell you used seemed a bit complicated at first, it was pretty systematic and rather easy to remember. Is there some sort of special reason that you were able to summon a non-summoning contract creature with that much ease?"

"Dragons use the same kind of energy that I use for my spells, they're easy to call upon because of that, though it requires large amounts of the energy due to their size, but that is only logical, don't you agree?" Naruto replied, the three ninja could tell that he was smiling underneath his mask. "He can carry all of us if I ask him, he is large enough to fly with all of us on his back. After all he is one of the strongest dragons I know."

"Hmm I guess we would like to fly there instead, assuming it is faster than travelling on ground." Kurenai replied, she was once again calm and collected as expected from a jounin.

"Then flying it is" Naruto replied, his smile broad as ever underneath his mask.

The group travelled the rest of the way to wave in silence. Not because they were too agitated to talk to each other or anything like that, but no one was able to actually speak with the others due to the fast speed at which they were flying.

Naruto were for once really enjoying himself, he loved soaring across the skies. Also now he was with Crosis once again, he had really missed him in the few days that they had not spent together. As they travelled Naruto gave directions to Crosis via telepathy.

They arrived at the border of Wave Country half a day ahead of schedule and due to the fact that most ninja were unable to fly they had not encountered any problems. Naruto decided for himself that it would be best if they walked the rest of the way into wave country, so that they would not attract unwanted attention. He bid Crosis farewell as he send him home to the study plane of Bolas, after all walking through a town with a dragon would not be very practical. The walk to the border had been rather short, only a few miles, and they had travelled it at a, to Naruto, rather surprising speed. He had expected the ninja to be fast, but the speed at which they covered the distance was still a bit surprising to him.

When they reached the border they were greeted by a group of soldiers from the daimyo's private guard. Their papers were checked thoroughly before they were allowed to enter the country of wave via the newly constructed bridge, called the Great Bridge of Hope. Naruto thought the name was rather odd, but then again considering the previous state of the country and the rumoured iron grip that the Businessman Gato had had on the country until recently, it really wasn't that weird.

Naruto thought about a lot of things as they made their way into the town at the end of the bridge. The town was in pretty bad shape, in the few weeks since the trade routes had been opened via the bridge, things hadn't improved much. Naruto figured that the rumoured iron grip and bad economy were the main causes for the rundown buildings and the people looked rather skinny and a few even suffered from malnutrition.

Naruto could tell that the people haven't had too much to eat for the last couple of months, but right this very moment to him they seemed happy or at the very least content with their situation. Naruto could also tell by the signs near some of the construction sites that were at several places across the town, that it would soon see its former glory. Most of the construction appeared to be sponsored by the daimyo himself, who apparently had taken advantage of the reopened trade routes and sold some of his personal treasures and valuables to help get the economy up and running in full flow as soon as possible. Fishermen were also bringing in large amounts of fish once again, the fish were salted and sold to travelling merchants who appeared to be happy about the much better price of the fish now that Gato was no longer trying to make a profit out of that part of business.

The five travellers settled down at an inn in the far end of town, the inn was still in a pretty bad shape, but the hosts were kind and friendly and they were especially thankful towards Konoha ninja. They were actually so thankful that Kurenai had to insist on paying for their stay several times before the hosts gave in, but they only ended up paying half of the normal prices for their rooms. The boys were to sleep in one room, Hinata and Kurenai slept in another room.

"So because we aren't scheduled to arrive at the Daimyo's castle before tomorrow, you all have the rest of the day off, but please be under lookout for suspicious characters who might be here looking for the same things as we are." Kurenai ordered. "And whatever you do, do not engage any potential enemies, instead inform me and I'll decide what we'll do about it."

Naruto decided to take a walk around town, to scry for magical energies and also to get to know the place. As he walked around it became very apparent to him just how bad a state the country was in. What he had seen earlier had only been the tip of the iceberg, the country had been left as dry as a human in Guul Draz territory.

The country was in a bit better state as the supplies had become cheaper, but a lot of people still couldn't afford it. Though the price at which the fishers could sell their fish had gone up, most families were still struggling to get food and a lot of orphans were still trying to beg people for food. Naruto knew that winter was coming soon, and that most of the orphans wouldn't make it through the winter, but there was not much he could do for them, except maybe set the village on fire, then they could keep warm for a little while. 'nah, that wouldn't be an efficient solution' Naruto thought to himself as he walked further into town, chuckling slightly at his rather distasteful joke.

Shino and Kiba had been following Naruto for quite a while, they didn't really trust him, and the fact that he could summon that gigantic monster of a dragon didn't solidify their trust in him in any way.

They had left Hinata behind because they didn't want to wait for her while she helped out the orphans that they had stumbled across, while following Naruto. She had always been ready to help those that needed her, that was the way she was, but she was never really the confident type, always stuttering or saying that she couldn't complete the task at hand. Kiba believed it to be because of her father, he had met him only once, but what Kiba understood from that one meeting was that he hated Hiashi Hyuuga. In Kiba's opinion the man was the definition of being a stuck-up self righteous asshole.

Kiba and Shino were hiding on the roofs of the buildings along the road which Naruto was travelling. They observed him as he walked around town seemingly alternating between closing his eyes to concentrate on something and looking around him to take in the city. While he seemed to notice the starving orphans his face didn't even show any compassion even once.

When the duo had been following him for about an hour, he did something different, he smiled a bit after looking at a group of orphans, and Kiba could hear him chuckle a bit as he walked away from the orphans.

"Did you hear that Shino, how he chuckled as he walked away from that group of orphans" Kiba said as he looked at Shino, who as usual didn't really show much emotion.

"No, but I saw his smile" Shino replied, his voice in the usual monotone state, but Kiba had known him for long enough that he knew that Shino was worried a bit as well.

"I'm going to tell Kurenai-sensei about this, I'm sure she would really like to know this, you keep on following him to see if he does something else." With that Kiba took off, making his way across the rooftops towards Kurenai.

Naruto were continuing his little sightseeing trip, but as the shadows had started to grow longer, he actually started to notice that he was a bit hungry. He decided to find something to eat before it became too late, he wouldn't want to go to sleep without having something to eat. Finding something to eat was easy, on the other hand finding something that wasn't fish was proving to become some sort of feat. Naruto had always hated fish, he found them to be very disgusting, both their taste and the consistence of the meat, it was very different from all the other different meats he had tasted.

Naruto had spent almost twenty minutes looking for a restaurant, when he finally found a small restaurant not far from the main harbor, the place sold takoyaki. Naruto knew enough about the cuisines of Intemperiae to know that takoyaki wasn't made of fish, which was all he needed to know to give it a try. Naruto had never been too picky, though he would never eat fish, that one time he had eaten fish had been enough for him, he spat it out after only chewing on it a little bit.

A little later Naruto left the restaurant after eating his fill of takoyaki, the cook had seemed rather happy about getting a customer who didn't seem to have a problem paying the bill before he received the servings. Naruto reckoned that the man didn't want to take the risk of customers trying to run away from the bill, a lot of people had close to nothing so it had probably happened a few times before.

Naruto then made his way back to the inn, he wasn't comfortable sharing a room with two ninja, they may be rookies, but even rookies could have some wicked skills or a nasty sense of humor, he was certain that the one named Shino was capable of a lot more than he looked to be capable.

So far his experience with the ninja of Intemperiae had been sort of disappointing, they were nothing like the ninja of Kamigawa. Ninja from Kamigawa were all about stealth and taking out your opponent before he noticed you or stopping at next to nothing to get to their goal, he hadn't seen them fight yet, but the one named Kiba was definitely more like a Kamigawan ogre than one of their ninja. Naruto figured that brawns for brains would be a good nickname for Kiba, even though he would likely get very violent if Naruto ever used that nickname, Naruto just couldn't help but laugh a bit on the inside, because he figured that Kiba would attack him if he called him that, and that would only prove what he said.

Naruto returned to the inn, and at about the same time Shino arrived as well, giving him a silent nod as a greeting. Naruto just nodded back, entered the inn and went upstairs to their room, he felt like he needed to meditate a bit and extend his senses a bit further, with enough focus he could probably extend his search to the entire town, maybe even a bit beyond, though the small sources of mana would be left out, he would definitely be able to locate large sources of mana.

When Naruto entered the room, Kiba was already sitting in the corner to the right closest to the door.

"Had a fun evening, Bolas-san" Kiba almost spat as he entered the room.

Naruto was already ready to explode, the young Inuzuka's disrespect was almost unbelievable, Naruto had never once done anything that would warrant such disrespect.

"It was pretty good, until I entered this room" Naruto replied, almost hissing. 'I need to calm down, before I make the situation much worse' Naruto thought almost immediately after he finished the sentence.

"Oh is that so, was it because I made you forget about those humorous orphans starving on the street, did I ruin the enjoyment you got from watching them suffer." Kiba queried his voice filled with disgust.

"What in the blaze of the five suns are you talking about" Naruto replied, he had no idea where that had come from all of a sudden. Naruto was beginning to think that Kiba was going insane, or maybe he was just so bored that he felt that he needed someone to use as a punching bag.

"You might not have noticed us, but we followed you when you went to explore the town, and at one time I heard something that made me consider the possibility that you might be either insane or a sociopath." Kiba said, his voice somewhat level, he then added. "I heard you chuckle after watching a small group of orphans for a little while."

Naruto couldn't believe what he had just heard, how could the boy have overheard him chuckle at the little joke that had formed inside his head. What more, how was he going to tell them why he had been chuckling, certainly saying something like 'oh yeah, well that was because I thought of burning the whole town to the ground to give the orphans a fire to warm themselves at during the coming winter.' How was he going to make that not sound sort of psychotic, he might as well add some maniacal laughter at the end to finish the masterpiece. As the gears in his head turned a little bit he came up with an idea for an excuse, he just hoped that it worked.

"Oh, that time, it reminded me of something funny that happened when I was younger, some of the fun times I had with some friends back home." Naruto lied, he was doing his best to hide the lie, after all he knew that at the very least some of them were good at detecting lies.

Luckily for Naruto, Kiba seemed to buy it and if the Shino noticed the lie he didn't show it. Naruto then went and sat down in the light that entered the room through one of the windows. The day was nearing its' end, quickly covering the town with a coat of shadows and darkness. The population of wave was saving a bit of money on the electricity bill and waited until it was properly dark before turning on the street lamps. The host at the inn had told them that she too would prefer if the inn stayed dark for as long as possible, he wanted to show his support and sympathy towards the rest of the town.

Naruto sat down and started to meditate, he tried to take in as much of the energies of the town as possible. He meditated for about an hour before he was disturbed by a knock on the door, to their room, Kiba had already asked the person or the people outside the door to let themselves in. Naruto opened his eyes just as the door started to open, it was happening very slowly for Naruto, almost in slow-motion, it was usually like that when he had really been trying to use his scrying abilities to their fullest. It would soon return to normal, but until it did, it was always a bit annoying, but in a way it was also very practical, because it was easier for him to react to whatever had disturbed his meditation, unless it was a lot faster than most creatures could move.

"So what did you find out today, while you were scouting through town, if there is even the slightest little detail that could mean a complication in our mission I need to know as soon as possible so we can start to take precautions against it." Kurenai said as she entered the room with Hinata in tow.

"I have nothing of interest to report" Naruto stated as he shifted into a more comfortable seating position.

"I spent a bit of time following Naruto-san today, we had a little fight over this, but everything is sorted out now." Kiba added, before turning his head in direction of Shino anticipating whatever he had to add.

"I also spent considerable amounts of time following Bolas-san, I found out that he dislikes fish" Shino stated, as soon as he had finished the sentence, most of the inhabitants of the room were on the floor laughing, the only ones not laughing were Shino and Naruto.

Naruto had a hard time figuring out exactly why that was so funny, Shino had been entirely right in his observations, and thinking things through he was certain that it would have been very apparent after a short time of observing his behavior near the food stands that sold grilled fish.

Hinata, Kiba and Kurenai slowly stopped laughing, and when the three of them had recovered from their laughing fit Hinata was the next to explain what she had observed that day.

"I haven't observed something that would jeopardize the mission, I spent a large amount of the day helping some of the orphans living on the street, getting food for them, disinfecting wounds and teaching them a bit about fishing and making a fire, so they at least have a small chance of making it." Hinata said, her eyes watering slightly at the thought of the orphans.

"That was very nice of you Hinata, I hope that they're going to make it too. Who knows, your act of kindness might have inspired some of the villagers, and if they're lucky some of the villagers might try to help them a bit as well." Kurenai said, as she stroked Hinata's hair while hugging her, Kurenai could tell how much it hurt for the young girl to see those orphans like that, after all the young Hyuuga was not at all as cold as the other Hyuuga she had met, in fact she was quite the opposite.

'thank god Kiba didn't mouth off at her about the situation down town, I get the feeling that she might just get a bit more than angry at me if she got the wrong idea' Naruto thought as he leaned back and stretched a little, still stiff from the meditation. As he sat there something sprung to mind, something that Sarkhan had told him a while ago, it was something along the lines of 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.' Well Naruto was not so sure about that, well at least if the saying only counted human women, if it included female dragons, then it was definitely true.

"Well I for one found something of interest, that I think we would all need to see. Talking to some of the locals about the ruins of this country I came across quite a few legends. Each ruin has its own legends and there are a lot of them that involve mysterious creatures showing up, one of them even speaks of a woman with giant eagle wings appearing at night looming in the night sky and following travelers, it is believed that she protects the travelers." Kurenai explained to Naruto and the genin. Kurenai noticed that the genin seemed much more surprised by the description than Naruto, who actually seemed to know the legend or at the very least know of creatures that were similar to the legends. Kurenai paused a little before continuing. "The largest ruin in Wave Country is the one with the most legends, and also the one that were going to salvage treasures and artifacts from."

"But we'll save those stories for another time, I suggest we go to bed so that we can move towards the daimyo's castle when day breaks." Kurenai finished.

**As always, hope you enjoyed**

**Heretic-kun**

**Beta:**

**You know I did**

**Akabara-sama**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Sorry for the wait, please enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Magic the Gathering, I however have a bunch of cards.**

Naruto woke from his sleep the next morning, not feeling rested in any way. Sleeping in a room with two ninja was not doing him any good. Naruto hoped that he would get used to being around them, so that at the very least wouldn't wake whenever Kiba moved even the slightest bit.

The legends that Kurenai talked about the previous evening had piqued Naruto's interest, angels on Intemperiae who would've thought. No matter how interesting, he knew that if there were an actual angel in the ruins it could prove to be a problem, especially because of his heritage. Throughout the entire history of the Multiverse, dragons and angels had always been opposed, beings of absolute purity simply weren't supposed to mix well with several tons of primal rage.

The other problem was how the angel had ended up on Intemperiae, there were no mentions of planeswalkers visiting the plane, and no records whatsoever of angels being native to the plane. No matter how worshipped angels were, they were not gods, all gods were beings native to the plane through some quirk of magic or planeswalking, just like every other species on a plane. Eldrazi and angels were the same in principle, just extremely different in intention and purpose. The same were true for dragons, elementals and demons, all considered to be godlike existences by many different tribes and species, but no matter where you looked in the history of planes the angels had not been introduced from some distant paradise by a good observing the world. The origin of the concept of a god, most likely originated from planeswalkers, who traversed the Multiverse, sometimes bringing along other creatures, and in some instances leaving the creatures there to carry on their species in their new world.

The mentions of an angel were troubling news to Naruto indeed. His mission had just taken a turn for the worse, and if by any chance the source of the mana increase were in the ruins with the angel, it could have been the source that had brought the angel to the plane originally.

Naruto's line of thought was interrupted by Kiba waking and stretching, as well as Akamaru doing the same. Naruto didn't really like the puppy, and he could tell that the puppy didn't like him either, animals had a tendency to either be scared of him or just wary of his presence, and the puppy was no exception.

"Good morning Kiba-san" Naruto said, trying to be as civil as possible.

"Good morning Naruto-san" Kiba mumbled, he was clearly not as quick out of bed as his canine partner.

Naruto looked at Shino who had slept with his back to the wall, Shino nodded his head as a form of greeting, before starting to get up.

"And a good morning to you too Shino-san" Naruto said, a smile spreading beneath his mask, the usual predatory look of amusement gleamed in his eyes.

'I'm probably never going to like that boy' Shino thought to himself as he regarded the young treasure hunter from behind his dark glasses.

"So are you ready for today? We are actually going to meet a daimyo" Kiba said, clearly excited at the prospect of meeting royalty, despite the special warning he had received from Kurenai about his behavior.

Naruto just nodded lightly and went to the bathroom to freshen up, spells could be utilized to keep him clean, but a nice cold splash of water really could help when you were tired.

When everyone had been ready they had packed up their things, and went down to the inn's dining room, to eat breakfast and if they were alone, discuss the plan for the following day.

As Kurenai expected the dining room of the inn were not crowded, actually apart from the ninja, it was empty, which suited their needs perfectly, no one to overhear their conversations. Kurenai had noted that Naruto had not seemed to calm down, he seemed apprehensive and thoughtful, she had noted that his behavior changed slightly sometime during her storytelling. She had concluded that it was something in the storytelling that had unnerved their companion, but she had yet to figure out what it was, after all they were only legends, and even though legends had some grain of truth to them, for the most part they were fiction.

Kurenai kept going over the stories from last night, but couldn't figure out what it was that unnerved the boy, they were all tales of things protecting the traveler or otherwise rather harmless things.

As soon as her genin appeared to have finished eating, Kurenai called attention to herself and started the briefing for the day. "So today we have scheduled a meeting with the daimyo, the soldiers from yesterday informed him of our arrival and they will escort us to the palace, however much the villagers like us is of no matter, the soldiers are going to be wary of us, because they know what we're trained to do, however don't let that frighten you, they are just doing their job."

Kurenai looked at her genin briefly before moving on, just to make sure that they all heard and understood what she said, she also briefly looked to Naruto who also appeared to be paying attention. "When we arrive at the palace, behave properly, bow before the daimyo and let me do the talking, speak only when spoken to. Naruto I trust you will be able to advise the daimyo on which ruins to prioritize, but only correct him if you know that he is making a wrong decision."

Naruto simply answered with a simple yes, Kurenai was pleased with that so she moved on to explain the next part. "When our session with the daimyo is finished we will move on to the next part of the mission immediately and make our way towards the first ruins, once we've arrived, Naruto will take the lead, because he is the senior in treasure finding, if he needs our help disarming a trap, we will provide the help he needs and follow his instructions, any questions?"

"No Kurenai-sensei" the three genin stated in unison.

Not long after they had finished the briefing the soldiers came to escort the ninja of Konoha and their treasure hunting companion to the palace. Naruto thought that the whole procession was a bit too grandiose for his taste, they were to travel to the palace in a carriage, the guards escorting them were mounted on horses, to keep up with the horse-drawn carriage

The ride itself was pleasant for the most part, the carriage itself was made of wood, and the seats were covered in red leather, which made them surprisingly comfortable. During the trip Kurenai got more and more frustrated going over the few legends she had told yesterday, not one thing in any of the stories gave an indication of danger, well not unless they were going to attack random travelers.

"So, Bolas-san I noticed yesterday that the legends I told to you all last night unnerved you, which part of it is it that is making you nervous? Or is it something else?" Kurenai asked, while keeping a close eye on Naruto, just to make sure she didn't miss any reaction.

Naruto sighed, he hadn't really expected her to notice, this could become complicated if she was just half as good at noticing his deceit as Tsunade had been, Naruto still wondered how Tsunade had called him out on his lies, he could tell that Tsunade hadn't been bluffing either.

"The legend that bothered me was the one about the supposed angel, who flies across the night sky protecting travelers who for whatever reason decides to travel during nighttime, despite the increased danger from wild beasts and bandits." Naruto replied slowly, he was still not sure whether telling a half-truth would be a good idea, but the truth was certainly not an option. He figured that if it came down to it, he could just blast his way out of the carriage with a fireball spell.

"And why would that legend bother you so? It is not like we plan to attack travelers, and besides angels are beings of good heart, it would not attack us for helping this country." Kurenai stated, she knew little of angels, but from the stories she had heard they were gentle and kind creatures.

"I would rather call them beings of a strict moral code, they will most likely attack anything not adhering to their code of conduct, and this code can be anything, the offence could even being a member of a certain race." Naruto replied, sighing once again, he was going to set himself and his kind in the best possible light, if he did well enough, he could probably get away with killing the angel without gaining their suspicion as well, should the legend prove somewhat true.

"So what you're saying is that you're worried it might be protecting those ruins, and that going into those ruins is going to earn its ire?" Kurenai asked, she had to admit that the prospect was worrying to her as well, if what Naruto said was true. She couldn't properly read the boy, not like she could with her genin or most of the chuunin of Konoha.

"Yes, that and the fact that I have close relations to dragons, the few angels I have encountered were very much against the existence of dragons, I've killed a few angels too, one particular instance was when a group of angels had attacked a dragons nest and killed Crosis' brother, a newly hatched dragon, no bigger than a puppy. The reason for their attack was that dragons were considered blight in their eyes." Naruto stated gravely, his voice was strained with sorrow when speaking of Crosis' younger brother. He gathered himself and steeled himself to tell the rest of the story, making sure to leave out things that hinted towards planeswalking. "My father and I arrived at the nest too late, but just in time to see the angel stab the tiny hatchling. Needless to say both my father and I went berserk, and we helped the Broodmother destroy the angels, one of them I personally incinerated with one of the most powerful fireballs I had ever cast."

Naruto was genuinely in sorrow, he had always seen Crosis as a brother, and Crosis' family was his family. The loss of the hatchling had been one of the most traumatic experiences in his life, he was only ten at the time, and although fairly mature compared to most other ten year olds, it took him weeks to recover, and some nights the haunting cries of the Broodmother still echoed in his dreams.

"I am sorry to hear that Bolas-san, you mentioned that you and Crosis were very close so it must have been tough" Kurenai replied, sympathy evident in her voice and her eyes, for once she could tell that he was telling the truth, she had seen enough true sorrow in the eyes of her family and friends to know how it looked. "Well if it comes down to it, we should be able to fight off the angel, you said you incinerated one with a fireball, do many of your spells utilize fire?"

"I specialize in fire-based spells for offence, however I have more than that in my arsenal and the energies used for fire spells can easily be used for lightning spells as well" Naruto replied, glad that Kurenai decided not to press the matter of the angel further and instead focus on what his role would be in eventual conflicts.

"Fire and lightning spells use the same kind of energies? What about water spells or earth spells then, of course assuming you can divide them like that" Kurenai queried, her interests piqued, to think that the spells labeled lightning and fire as the same kind of element, interesting to say the least.

"You can't label them based on the elemental system you use for the chakra. However earth spells generally use the same energies as the fire spells, while water spells mostly are powered by another type of energy." Naruto replied, sighing at the rigid system chakra theory they had built, for an energy that was supposedly able to let you control elements it was certainly very limited in its use.

"Well I would love to hear the explanation of how your spells work, but that is going to have to wait, since we'll arrive at the palace in less than five minutes, I am certain that we will be able to see it soon." Kurenai said, smiling at her genin.

Kiba looked quite excited like he had most of the day. Hinata was her usual nervous self, however Kurenai noticed the pity that replaced the anxiety, whenever the girl looked at Naruto. Hinata had always loved all animals, she was the kind of girl that would wish for a puppy or a kitten for her birthday, though her father would never allow her to keep one, even if someone else were to give it to her as a gift. The story had brought it home once again to the girl, that the world she lived in was harsh, no matter how much good she could spread. Kurenai just hoped that the girl would never lose her kind heart, maybe she should suggest her for medic-nin training with the Hokage, after all Hyuuga was known for their chakra control.

When they arrived at the palace they were hastily moved into a special audience room not far from the gates to the palace grounds, there were at least ten guards escorting them, and none of them made to leave, but instead positioned themselves between the daimyo's seat and the ninja.

The daimyo arrived not long after the ninja had arrived, he had been informed of their arrival and had kept the last half an hour free from appointments, this mission he had applied for with Konoha was important not only for himself, but for his country as well.

The daimyo had observed the ninja and their companion from behind a veil, he had to do this for five minutes while the guards made sure that they had all positions covered so that he would not be assassinated, the guests could not see him, but he could see them.

He wasn't sure what to think of the group, it was led by a young woman with red eyes, he had never seen anyone with eyes like hers, he could see that many of his guards eyed her out of the corner of their eyes, pretending to be vigilant, he could hardly blame them though, the woman was very good looking. What he noticed however was that she was not fooled by the guards feeble attempt to seem professional, she had seen through the act. It was clear to the daimyo that this woman was a professional, the way she dressed wouldn't hinder her movement, and it also served to distract the guards, which probably was part of the function. The dress however was not improper, and he was certain that she could hide plenty of weapons, especially with the use of sealing.

The daimyo moved his eye to the other girl in the group, she was clearly one of the genin, and looked quite nervous. He however noticed the trademark white eyes that heralded a Hyuuga, one of the Elder Clans of Konoha. In general there wasn't much to observe about the girl, except for the shirt which was a bit too big for her, either to take part of the blows in combat, or for the purpose of hiding weapons.

The other three were boys, one appeared to be fourteen, maybe fifteen years old, the two others appeared to be the same age as the girl, he assumed they were her genin teammates, one of these two had a feral look on his face, he was clearly excited, probably about the mission. The feral looking boy had war-paint on his cheeks, which resembled fangs, and on his head sat a small white puppy, his clothes appeared to be a bit big as well, probably for the same purpose as any other ninja, hidden weapons.

The last ninja was wearing a high-collared coat, and a pair of dark sunglasses, other than that he was fairly nondescript, very much unlike his teammate. Though for some reason the daimyo were more wary of this boy than the other, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking, and a ninja who you had no estimation of was dangerous.

The last of the group was the supposed treasure hunter, the messenger had explained that he was a specialist in treasure hunting, and had been sent by Konoha to ensure the success of the mission, without further cost to the daimyo himself. However much he appreciated the gesture, he wasn't too happy about the boy, his eyes looked almost predatory, his clothes plain, grey cloak and mask hiding most of his face, the only thing that set him apart was the book hanging at his side with chains. For some reason the boy radiated an aura of command, it made him feel inferior to whatever this man was, and he did not like it, whatever his motives was, he hardly believed it was money. So the boy was an unknown factor in the mission, and the daimyo couldn't figure out whether it was for the better or for worse.

The daimyo was no stranger to the world of ninjas, he had received training in stealth and how to read people and the situation. His father had insisted that he knew these things, because in a world with so many ninja running around, not being ready for them was a liability, due to his duties as a daimyo's son he had not been able to learn how to battle or use chakra, but instead he was only taught the theory needed to identify intentions and slip away quickly if things went downhill.

The daimyo were especially familiar with the Konoha ninja, his teacher in the arts had after all been one of the veterans, a man named Danzo. Danzo had trained the daimyo prior to the injury, which caused him to retire from the line of duty.

The five minutes were finally up, and he entered the room escorted by two of his most loyal guards, both had trained with the samurai in the Land of Iron, and could hold their own, even against jounin.

"Ah welcome to my humble palace" the Daimyo said, greeting his visitors with a warm smile. The ninja bowed deeply before him, but Naruto did not bow deeply, he simply nodded at the daimyo.

"I trust you have been informed that we have brought along a specialist for this mission. I am Kurenai Yuhi, jounin leader of these genin, and the young treasure hunter at my side is Naruto Bolas of the Eastern Islands." Kurenai said, her tone even and professional, gesturing towards each of her genin she introduced them quickly. "The genin are Hinata Hyuuga, Shino Aburame and Kiba Inuzuka"

"A pleasure to meet you all, now let's get down to business, first order of business is the grand ruins in the westernmost parts of my country. These ruins not only contain the most valuable artifacts, but also the most dangerous traps. The importance of these items is not the value, but rather what they represent for the country, there's tombs which were built for ancient heroes, the vault of the founder of wave country is supposedly in the innermost dungeons of the place." The daimyo stated his voice firm and full of authority. "However, there is one artifact which is of utmost importance, inside the ruins is a cube, which actually belongs in the chair in the throne room, I have decided that it must return to where it belongs."

"Can we get a description of this cube, after all depending on its size we might miss it." Kurenai replied once the daimyo stopped talking.

"Ah yes, well it is green, and can fit in your palm, on the sides there's some markings, which I have no idea what looks like. It is not a very precise description, however I believe that there's not that many green cubes lying around the place." the daimyo said, an amused look spreading across his face.

"Any other particular ruins that we should prioritize or should we just go through them one by one, then return within the month with whatever we've uncovered" Kurenai asked, she wondered why the cube was that important. "Also do you have any information on the traps inside those ruins?"

"The plan for the ruins sound fine, however my men are scouring the eastern ruins, they were ruined by Gato, so they're not some ancient treasure throve, simply burned down villages and such" the daimyo answered, as he recalled what had been told to him about the ruins. "And the traps, well I don't have too much info, but my ancestors were fond of hiring ninja to trap the walls, the floors are mostly mechanic traps using tripwires I believe, but the walls, well they are the dangerous part."

Everyone's attention shifted to Naruto who had cleared his throat after the daimyo had finished talking to Kurenai.

"Before we get started I would like to inform you that I will take any scrolls containing medic ninjutsu, as per my agreement with Tsunade of the Sannin." Naruto stated, something in his voice made the daimyo feel that he was not to be contested on the matter. "It was my deal with her to get a recommendation for the job, and also I believe that you will have no use for the scrolls yourself."

"Well that is fine by me, as long as I get the artifacts from the ruins, any scrolls containing medic ninjutsu, however unlikely, will be yours to keep for Tsunade of the Sannin" the daimyo replied, a smile grazing his face. A young man speaking with such authority, it was rare, whoever had raised him, had raised a proud man, maybe a bit too proud everything considered.

"Thanks for taking the time to see us Daimyo-dono, we will get to it immediately" Kurenai said, before bowing once again, her genin did the same. They were then escorted out of the palace, the trip to the gate was not so pleasant however. Kurenai could tell that the guards were angry at Naruto for his blatant disrespect of their leader.

"Now we travel as fast as possible, were about one day from our destination, we can arrive before nightfall if Bolas-san would be so kind and summon Crosis for us. This however is up to you Bolas-san." Kurenai said, as they were out of sight from the palace.

"I can't, there isn't enough energy here for me to summon Crosis to me" Naruto replied, he looked grim, oh how he disliked being in a place with very small amounts of red mana, it was a nuisance when you preferred them and in particular if you specialized in them.

Using red spells had always come naturally to Naruto, even in areas where the amount of red mana was low he could use some of the rather powerful spells in his arsenal for some reason disregarding the mana entirely and forcing the natural mana to become red mana. His father had theorized that this was an ability granted to him by the lesser demon sealed in his stomach. The Kyuubi it was called, and for the most part Naruto didn't care for it, it was no danger to him, but not a particular advantage either the only reason he hadn't asked his father for a way to remove it was because of the ability to mutate mana. He knew of several artifacts that could mutate mana as well, but they were often very useless, one time uses or had a need to cool down after use to prevent them from overheating.

Naruto had no such limits when it came to mutating mana, he knew that some of the Orochi shamans could mutate green mana into another color, they were in a way using an ability quite the opposite of his own.

"Well I guess we're going to have to do it the old fashioned way then." Kurenai stated as they all got ready for several hours of cross-country.

They arrived that late that evening after nightfall, the genin were setting up camp, while Naruto looked nervously towards the sky, if there really was an angel around here, he wouldn't be caught off guard.

The trek had been rather hard on Naruto, he was in very good shape, but it was still not enough compared to the ninja, he figured they used chakra innately to keep going. He himself had regenerated his muscles using a bit of black magic along the way, and he added unholy strength on top of that, just to be on the safe side, never knew what kind of mana the ruins would produce.

The evening sun had been beautiful, it was nothing like the areas he was used to either the setting sun had brought monsters, like it did on Kamigawa, there was no enjoying sunsets on that plane. Mirrodin on the other hand hadn't had a single night when he had visited the plane, even the black sun had given off some eerie light which made things almost as clear as day.

As Naruto thought about the many planes he had visited, what night heralded on many of those planes, he continued to keep an eye out for the angel, the ninja would soon have finished setting up camp. Kurenai had even set up quite a few traps around their campsite, which was located underneath a rocky outcropping at the edge of the ruins.

Kurenai thought that the ruins looked right creepy at night, the shadows they cast, especially in the light of the fire were eerie, and the thought that the angel was out there, maybe even planning to attack them simply because of their proximity to the ruins were not comforting her in any way.

To say Hinata was nervous we be quite the understatement, she was scared, if the angel really was anything like the stories and what Naruto had told them, then it could be very dangerous. She had no idea what to think of Naruto however, at times he seemed like a very normal and nice boy, despite the way his eyes looked. Even so at other times he seemed to be very cynical and aloof, and the way he changed back and forth from the two were unnerving to say the least, it reminded her a bit of her cousin Neji, who were shifted between seeming emotionless and very angry at different times.

Unbeknownst to both the ninja and Naruto they were all being observed, from inside the ruins, a winged woman looked at them, she didn't know what to think of the lot. She had no problem with them being there and she wouldn't care if they went into the ruins, but as always she was afraid that they were here for her, either to drag her off to some prison or to kill her. She reckoned that by killing the bandits who threatened the travelers she might have made a few enemies along the way. She dearly hoped that they were just here for ancient relics, because she had a feeling she wouldn't be able to fight off this group. In particular she was afraid of the one in the grey cloak, he seemed to be radiating a weird aura, she had only sensed that aura once before, and that had been when she had landed on this world. She never once knew who or what had radiated that aura, but now after so many years it was back, and it scared her.

**Hope you enjoyed the chapter**

**Heretic-kun**


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